The invention concerns a device for transferring continuously arriving articles, especially folded-bottom boxes lying with their ends that face each other along the direction of travel differing in thickness, to a packing machine, with a mechanism for distributing the articles onto two different conveyor mechanisms, one conveying the articles without rotating them to the upstream side of a merging mechanism and the other extending below the merging mechanism, through a 180.degree. curve, and back to its downstream side. The invention also concerns a mechanism for alternately laying off flat articles, especially folded-bottom boxes, from each side of and onto a more or less horizontal merging mechanism that is especially intended for use with a device of the aforesaid type and that has two two-belt conveyor mechanisms that end at approximately the same level on each side of and outside the layoff area.
In stacking flat articles that differ in thickness at their mutually facing ends, rotating some, approximately half, of the articles 180.degree. as they approach the stacking point in order to keep the stacks level is known.
German OS 2 009 373 describes a generic device for stacking periodicals with a distributing station that distributes the periodicals arriving on a conveyor belt onto two different conveyor mechanisms each leading to a different side of a receiving station where the periodicals are stacked and bundled. One conveyor mechanism conveys the periodicals without rotating them to the upstream side of the receiving station and the other extends under the station, through a 180.degree. curve, and back to its downstream side.
A device for creating a level stack of folding boxes is known from German GM 8 437 318. The arriving stream of boxes is also distributed onto two conveyor mechanisms, one extending above the stacking point, through a 180.degree. curve, and back downstream of the stacking point, where it drops the boxes into a stacking shaft.
A drawback to these known devices is that they cannot be employed to continuously pack the articles into shipping cartons vertically as is conventional.
Furthermore, special problems occur when packing folded-flat articles that tend to open up, folded-bottom boxes that are lying flat for example. Experience has demonstrated that the folded-bottom boxes, which tend to open up, cannot, as the periodicals addressed in German OS 2 009 373 can, be allowed to drop freely very far, or, due to the overlapping-folded bottom flaps and sides, be advanced over one another ahead of time with tops or bottoms without problems.